Well, I don't know about politics, but what is incredible to me is that there are two, somewhat redundant, randomly organized, indecipherably threaded lists dealing with piano technology. Historically understandable though the situation be, it is nonetheless a bad way to organize our collective thinking. A forum (or several forums) on piano technology would, in my view, serve us better than our current four list-serves (CAUT, pianotech, refinishing, institutional, any more??). With a forum you subscribe to just the threads or forums you want to subscribe to. There are some cons to a forum, but there are, I think, more pros than cons. At the very least there would be some organization to the conversation, and you could, from the get go, decide which conversations to join or not join. Ron deletes entire categories of conversation based on, I'm guessing, the thread (notorious for not reflecting the actual conversation) or who is participating (pesky personalities?!) or ?????. But you have to do that in real time, each time. And don't get me started on searching through the archives (see previous parenthetical note). With a forum you'd post something about unequal temperaments in that thread of the tuning forum. If there wasn't a thread, you'd create one. Responses to your thread would come to your inbox. You want to find an answer to your tuning pin question, go to the rebuilders forum, see if there's a tuning pin thread. So where would you post something on "duplex noise?" Depends on your angle - could be voicing or rebuilding or maybe concert prep or maybe somewhere else. It still wouldn't necessarily be easy to find information. It's a complex subject, and any organization of the information will be complex too. But organize it we should, in some fashion. Yep, you might organize serendipity out, but not entirely. What we have now is valuable, but I don't have time to wade through all the lists making "should I read this, or chuck it" decisions. I miss some good stuff by not subscribing to Pianotech, but it's not political for me, just time management. There's good info buried in both CAUT and Pianotech, and some nonsense too. And both suffer the same problem of zero organization. I'd subscribe to a rebuilders forum, and within that forum, I'd subscribe to quite a number of the threads. I'd also subscribe to a concert prep forum (or thread). And a CAUT thread. And many others would I subscribe to. I wouldn't subscribe to a thread on whether or not one should join, or re-join the PTG. BTW, I think the forums should be open to all, regardless of organizational affiliation. Libraries and encyclopedias, the public domain, are good things. Alan -- Alan McCoy, RPT Eastern Washington University amccoy at mail.ewu.edu 509-359-4627 509-999-9512 > From: Ron Nossaman <rnossaman at cox.net> > Reply-To: "College and University Technicians <caut at ptg.org>" <caut at ptg.org> > Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:30:04 -0500 > To: "College and University Technicians <caut at ptg.org>" <caut at ptg.org> > Subject: Re: [CAUT] Requirements for contributing/posting; RPT status > > >> Thanks Phil, but the question was,: how many subscribe to */both? >> /*I'll have your answer in the morning, thanks. >> >> David Skolnik > > I find it incredible that so many cauts don't read pianotech. > Caut is a subset of piano technician, as is rebuilder. We're > all working on the same instruments with the same problems. > The difference is in the politics. > Ron N
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